Bailiesmills Reformed Presbyterian Church is a Bible centred church. The Word of God (the 39 canonical books of the Old Testament and the 27 canonical books of the New Testament) is our ultimate standard for both what we believe and how we behave.

Bailiesmills is also a confessional church. We adhere to the doctrinal and practical summary of Biblical teaching contained in the Westminster Confession of Faith, and in the Larger and Shorter Westminster Catechisms. Further practical and contemporary applications of the Bible are summarised in the Testimony of the Reformed Presbyterian Church of Ireland.

It is fundamental to our confessional standard that we are a Trinitarian church. We confess that God is the Trinity of God the Father and God the Son and God the Holy Spirit: three Persons, equal in dignity, power and glory, and yet one God.

Bailiesmills is a connectional church. We are a congregation of the Eastern Presbytery of the Reformed Presbyterian Church of Ireland. We are convinced that the Bible teaches that churches ought to be in partnership with one another, for mutual guidance, fellowship in prayer and worship, and for the exercise of discipline.

Bailiesmills is an evangelical church. We are persuaded that:

• Jesus Christ is both truly God and fully human. He is the Word, the Son of God, “the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature” (Heb. 1:3). He is also fully human, being the son of the virgin Mary, conceived by the Holy Spirit.

• Jesus Christ lived a perfect, God-honouring human life. There was no sin in him at all.

• Jesus Christ died a sin-bearing, wrath-bearing death on a Roman cross. Since there was no sin in him, the sins for which he died were the sins of other people – he willingly took upon himself responsibility for the sins of his people, and he paid their debt in full.

• Jesus Christ was raised to an entirely new quality of life by God. The same body that was put to a shameful death on the Cross was raised imperishable, glorious and powerful.

• Jesus Christ was exalted to the place of supreme authority in the cosmos – having made purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God the Father. He has received the name that is above every name: Jesus Christ is Lord.

• Jesus Christ loves the Church. From his position of authority, Jesus has sent God the Holy Spirit to dwell in the Church, gifting her members for works of service. The Church is central to God’s saving purpose. Salvation and the Church go hand-in-hand, so that there is no salvation outside the Church. 

• Jesus Christ will come again in majestic glory and with divine authority to bring the present age to an end. Everyone then living or who has ever lived will be assembled before him and he will pass judgement on them. Those who have loved him in this life, he will conduct with great joy into the presence of God. Those who rejected his offer of forgiveness and his call to repentance he will drive out of his presence into eternal punishment.

• Jesus Christ will then renovate the whole cosmos. Just as he is the creative Word by whom heaven and earth were created, and the sustaining Word by whom everything is held together and guided towards God’s goal for the cosmos, so also he is the re-creative Word by whom all things shall be made new. And when he has done this, then God himself will dwell forever with his people.

Being persuaded of these things, Bailiesmills seeks to fulfil its mandate to make Jesus Christ known.